


Cider and Circular Memories

by ashes0909



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alien Robots, BuckyNat Secret Santa, F/M, Memories, Memory Loss, Mutual Pining, POV Bucky Barnes, POV Natasha Romanov, Snowball Fight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 01:31:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9150868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashes0909/pseuds/ashes0909
Summary: Natasha remembered the moment she saw the Soldier, and in that same moment knew Bucky Barnes hadn’t remembered her at all.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LMNO](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMNO/gifts).



> This fic was written for LMNO who requested recovered memories, a dash of angst, a bit of pining and lots of longing looks. I hope I delivered, and that you enjoy. 
> 
> This was my first BuckyNat Secret Santa and it was a ton of fun. Thanks for inspiring this fic, and thanks to Hermit9 for beta-ing!
> 
> Happy Holidays everyone. :)

 

Cinnamon and apple. It was the smell of winter nights, holiday cheer, Christmas. As Bucky followed the path that led to the kitchen he lost track, just for a moment, of what century he was in, of what country he called home.

She hummed, hips swaying to the music as she stirred a large pot of cider on the stovetop. He froze by the doorway and watched her hands. Not wrapped around a weapon or clenched into a fist. No, they were stirring a pot in the Avengers Tower kitchen.

It was in that moment that he remembered Natalia Romanova.

Barely a teenager, red hair tied with a black ribbon. She was a ballerina of the Red Room. The delicate strength of her hands focused on a ladle; a juxtaposition that startled him as much then as it did now.

They did not celebrate holidays in the depths of Hydra but they did have seasonal meals, seasonal greetings, songs. He’d recognize the _Kalinka_ anywhere. Hearing it come out of the Avengers Tower speakers was unusual...or maybe it wasn’t. He’d often heard Stark’s hard rock, Bruce’s jazz. The _Kalinka_ was just another song one of them put on when they thought they were alone, when they needed something to occupy the deafening noise only silence could bring.

Natalia Romanova wasn’t always a child.

Though his memories as the Winter Soldier were hazy, he recalled a woman of that name. She held his attention even then, back when he was hardly more than a tool. But everything faded into the background and in the forefront of his memory was a teenager preparing cider for the Hydra base.

She was a girl far away from the familiarity of the Red Room, stationed at a Hydra base for reasons he could not remember. Her shoulders were tight, tense as he had walked by, but still she had offered him a cup.

Now named Natasha, she turned to him, and though she’d probably sensed him the moment he had entered the hallway, she didn’t mention his silence. Instead, she handed him a cup of cider as the music changed from _Kalinka_ to _Jingle Bell Rock_.

~~~

Natasha remembered the moment she saw the Soldier, and in that same moment knew Bucky Barnes hadn’t remembered her at all. The polite handshake, his inability to meet her eye, the way he stayed glued to Steve’s side like a lost lamb.

There were moments when she saw him that it was hard to separate him from _the asset_. Other times, the times she liked the best, it was like he was the best of both versions of himself. Like now, with a snowball in his hand. He was both the dedicated snipers she had known and the playful Sergeant she had only heard of in stories.

“Come on, Nat,” Clint shouted from the other side of the common room balcony. “Help me here.”

She perched on the edge of the couch and sipped her cider, watching from inside the living room. The sliding glass door was open and the roaring fireplace kept her warm. Bucky was just outside the door, a snowball pressed into his hand. He caught her eye and raised an eyebrow, as if asking her if he should throw it.

Clint had started this mess with a surprise shot that landed on the side of Bucky’s face, and it was up to Clint to finish it. She gave Bucky a short nod and the corner of his smile lifted into a smirk before he threw the ball.

Based on Clint’s grunt, it was a solid hit onto the archer’s abdomen. “Nat!” he called after a moment. “Get him!”

She felt Bucky's eyes on her as she eyed a pile of snow and he was waiting for her to dash towards it and--

A memory overwhelmed her, they were both perched on opposite ends of a snowy field. He was crouched in the window of an abandoned building, she was hiding behind a hut with the roof blown off. In the middle of the field was the target, an injured man they both wanted to take back alive. The hairs on her neck had risen, and she knew his riffle was trained on the sliver of her that could be seen through the cracks of the hut.

“Nat!” Clint’s screamed, and it brought her back to the present. She placed her cider on the end table and was out the door in the next heartbeat. The wet snow balled in her hand and she had a perfect shot for the Winter Soldier’s open side. She took it, a single blow and he staggered back, eyes wide. But instead of blood spilling over his chest and his eyes going blank, white snow covered his sweater and his smile opened into an easy grin. His eyes crinkled into something resembling joy.

She thought this was a strange way to payback two bullets from his rifle into her stomach, but she still felt vindicated so maybe it didn’t matter.

Clint ran towards her, snowball in hand and he aimed it right onto her shoulder.

“You double crosser,” she accused as snow ran down her arm. “I saved you.”

“All’s fair in--” A snowball hit him square in the cheek and over the shoulder she heard Bucky laugh, deep and warm and friendly. So unlike anything she had heard from the Soldier. When she turned to face him, she knew her confusion was written over her face. The emotion blatant enough for someone as trained as the Winter Soldier to read it.

Confusion did not make sense for this scenario, or so Bucky would think. The Winter Soldier may have laughed in the past but it was always brittle, always broken. Now Bucky’s eyes narrowed as he tried to calculate, tried to figure out why she looked like she’d seen a ghost or, more accurately, the side of a man she never knew existed.

~~~

“On your right, Widow,” he said through the comm unit and it wasn’t the first time they were out on a mission together, but it was the first time the Avengers gave him his own perch without a shadow.  Bucky had his eye on each of them as often as the battle allowed, and though the alien robots had separated each team member, Bucky and Clint were able to provide enough information from their vantage points to take out a majority of the enemy.

One cornered Natalia even as her fist struck his metal cheek, and he knew the hit hurt her more than the robot. He had his eye in the scope, watching her. “ _Give me an opening,_ ” he said to himself, and it wasn’t till the comms went silent that he realized he had called her Natalia in his mind and spoken Russian aloud.

She froze, as did he. The robot on the ground threw Natasha across the street and she landed shoulder first on a fire hydrant. He never saw the one that snuck into his perch, smashing a glass wall so it rained over his body. It was the opening the robots needed to land them both into medical.

The same medical wing Steve and Stark now argued outside of, and although Stark tried to keep Steve from bringing his anger into their medical room, he lost that battle.

“Russian?” Steve asked as soon as he walked through the doorway.

Bucky kept his eye on his hands unwilling to look his friend in the eye. He was surprised when the Widow -- it was easier to call her that in his head right now, that at least was consistent-- interrupted Steve’s tirade, words forced through clenched teeth. “Does the language offend you, Captain?”

“Oh, you know it's not about that,” Steve replied, hands waving in the air like the notion that he'd be offended by the language was ludicrous.

Stark stepped forward, edging himself into the middle of the confrontation like Starks seemed to do best in every century. Bucky knew he had to step in, that Steve’s worries would only be assuaged if he said something. He took a deep breath and ignored the ragged way it filled his lungs. “I’m not regressing, Stevie. It was just a slip. The Widow was listening to some Russian carols the other day and it must’ve reminded me of…”

Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw her tense, remembering the kitchen and cider and he wondered if she knew that he knew her from before, or if it was just the confusion of her own memories. Did she remember him? What of him could she remember? Would it be things he still failed to recall?

“Everyone out.” The doctor walked in, her orders crisp as she looked over the two clipboards in her hand. “There are too many people in here for me to work. Go! Get!”

And it was right there in medical, when she was removing the fabric of battlesuit, that he remembered her as an adult.

He quickly averted his eyes as the doctor stitched her shoulder but he remembered her now. He remembered them on a mission, in the middle of summer, in the West Indies. He had been refrozen a handful of times since he had seen her last as a teenager with cider. She had grown and he had stayed the same, much like always.

They were holed up on an island, the sun heating his metal arm to unbearable levels. She was in a bikini. He remembered that it was hard not to stare at so much skin and as she fought, barefoot in the sand, he felt more captivated by the lines of her curves than any other aspect of the mission.

As _the asset,_ the freezing and erasing of his memories often left him numb, a void with no other purpose than the mission. Watching Natalia had made him….feel.

After disposing of the mark she had turned to him, a satisfied smirk broken only by the blood that spattered across her face and she eyed him like her next mark, her next piece of prey. He remembered thinking in that moment how much he wanted her to walk towards him, run a hand along his metal arm, wrap it around his neck and kiss him.

She did not do that, but he had wanted it. Instead she reached for a towel and rubbed the blood of her face, eyes flicking towards him every other second. A flush that had more to do with his attention than the battle, rose onto her cheeks.

Not fifteen minutes later they were extracted by vessel from the Islands and brought back to Russia. The next time he had seen her, she was a SHIELD agent, a defector.

Her back was still to him as she sat on the medical bed, letting her cut air out. The doctor walked over to him with tweezers and began to systematically remove glass from under his skin. He closed his eyes against his desire to stare at the delicate skin of her neck, the knobs of her spine. He imagined trailing his fingers along the skin, feeling her strength shift underneath.

“All set,” the doctor said, and he opened his eyes to the clatter medical instruments against a tray.

He couldn’t resist looking at her, and she was already staring at him over her shoulder as if trying to figure him out. What did she remember? He wanted to ask but, no. It would open up too much, or not nearly enough.

“I had the nurses send Mr. Stark and the Captain back to the Tower. You two can take as much time as you need. Please, don’t come back too soon.”

~~~

She dreamt of the West Indies that night. The look in his eye had been exactly the same as before, darkened, captivated. It lit something under her skin that she knew to be lust, spurred by an undercurrent of recklessness.

He had remembered her, she knew that now. But did he remember that one night that had haunted her dreams? The one that she forced herself to wake from. The one where they were alone on the extraction vessel for almost eight hours. 

Natasha didn’t think so. She could easily recall the way she pushed him up against the door that led to the cabins. Still in her bikini, she used the revealing outfit to her advantage, as he tried not to touch her, struggled to figure out an appropriate way to manage the situation. That was until she grabbed his wrist and brought his metal hand to the back of her hip.

The years between the Red Room and SHIELD, Natasha rarely liked to think about. She was well-trained and a strategic mastermind, but she was also impulsive. Especially around men. She learned at a young age what most wanted out of her, and used it to her advantage on the battlefield. Off of it, she used it to get what she wanted. In that moment, years ago on the extraction vessel, she had wanted to seduce the Winter Soldier. So she did.

Guilt curled in her stomach and mixed with her feelings of lust, when she thought of it now. Knowing Bucky, the man who had his body frozen and his brain manipulated, he didn’t deserve the treatment of Widow’s adolescent self, to be treated like a conquest.

Had he remembered?

Curling onto her shoulder, she looked out of her floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking New York City. A part of her wanted him still. It was selfish and dangerous. But as Bucky Barnes returned to the Soldier’s mind, she found herself wanting him more and more.

He found her at the gym the next morning, knuckles wrapped as she took her aggression out on the punching bag.

“Looking to spar?” he asked, gym bag thrown over his shoulder, his sleeveless shirt causing the metal arm to glint under the overhead light.

“I’m good.”

“Oh come on,” he teased. “A little challenge would do you good.”

“And that’s what you are?” She looked over her shoulder in time to see him lift his eyebrow. “Well, maybe a bit,” she admitted. “What’s in it for you?”

He pulled over a couple mats, setting them side by side and dropping into a loose fighting stance. “You mean besides fighting the infamous Black Widow?”

She moved away from the punching bag and wondered if this was his way to test the waters, if this was a little game he was playing to see if she would tell the truth that they were both beginning to sense between them. She wouldn’t play his game. She was never one to lie about a truth unless it led to an advantageous situation.

Here, the truth was the riskier option but it was also the better one. “You’ve fought me before.” She kept her eyes on his, watching for the surprise than never came. Instead the smirk fell away from his face leaving an open vulnerability that scared her more than she’d considered possible.

“I know.” His words hung in the air between them. “I remember.”

“All of it?” she asked too quickly. The vulnerability apparently contagious as she winced under his gaze. Failed to hide it, let him see it.

“How would I know?”

“What do you remember?” She circled him along the edge of the mat and he matched her pace. It was easier, at least for her, to throw a punch while she waited for his answer.

He dodged it, threw one of his own. “Cider.” He jabbed her shoulder. “A snowy field.”

She blocked his second jab and returned three of her own. “The time you shot me?”

“Yes,” he said as he stepped back, putting space between them before rushing forward with a push kick. “And the West Indies.”

She grabbed his ankle, twisting him to his knee, but he shot his metal fist out and hit her side until she let go. Grabbing her arm the next second and throwing her on the mat. “What of the West Indies?” she asked, breath catching as he stood over her.

“What do you mean?” His words were calm, casual.

Disappointment rushed through her veins, choking at her throat. He didn’t remember when she cornered him on the ship, pushed into his personal space and crashed their lips together. He didn’t remember the way he had held her too tightly on each side, like he was about to push her away before deciding at the last moment to bring her closer, wrap his arms around her until they were flush against one another.

He offered her a hand and helped her off the mat. “Nothing,” she answered.

“You’re lying.”

“Maybe.” She felt his eyes on her as she walked back to the edge of the mat, dropping into a fighting stance again. They ran over her face, along her tense muscles and back over her mouth, her eyes. She felt him read her and wondered why she wasn’t trying to build barriers. Why she wanted him to know.

She rushed forward, surprising him enough so her heel kick, punch combo pushed him off his feet. He was the one down on the mat now, staring at her, not even trying to defend himself. “You,” he began, blue eyes wide and Natasha had no idea what to do other than freeze and let him speak. “You rushed me then. There was a door….you,” his face blossomed into a blush that would make Captain America proud.

“I what?” she prompted, despite knowing what he was going to say, or maybe because she wanted to hear him say it.

“You kissed me.” He pushed up from the mats, took two short steps until he was right in front of her, his hands were lifting, aiming for her cheek, her hair. She didn’t stop them. “You did more than kiss me,” he said, satisfaction turning the memory into a mental image for both of them. It caused his smirk to return, filthy and flirty as ever. “You said you wanted me.”

She broke the gaze, closing her eyes and wanting so badly to turn her cheek into his hand but there was a fear there, something that rode on this moment, and it paralyzed her movement. So unlike the girl from before, she thought to herself, wondering why this mattered more now. The team, yes, but also...Natasha Romanoff was fighting on the side of the Heroes now. And here was a man so troubled, so confused, she didn’t know how to react.

The soft touch of his lips against hers was unexpected. It spurred her eyes open and he was so close, the blue tilted with curiosity. He tasted just the same and it was all too fleeting. “What do you want now?” he whispered against her lips.

She thought of the snow, how his cheeks reddened with the joy of their snowball fight. She thought of his voice in her ear during battle. She thought of how much she had wanted him when she was younger as a conquest, and how now she wanted him for the man that he was. And she surged forward, just as she had all those years ago.

They both fell to the mat in a tangle of limbs, until he rolled on top of her. His hair fell along the side of her face as he leaned in to kiss her again.

~~~

They were speaking in Russian again, this time sitting in the living room with a deck of cards between them. Speaking was probably not the most accurate description of the insults they were throwing at one another and as Steve walked into the room, he caught the end of a colorful tirade from Bucky.

“Is, um, everything okay?” he asked from the kitchen, hands actually wringing against the hem of his shirt.

Bucky caught Natasha’s eye before they both burst out laughing. _“What a silly boy,”_ she said in Russian.

 _“He worries,”_ he replied.

_“He mother-hens.”_

_“Yes.”_

“I understood that word,” Steve interjected.  “What’s going on here? You two are paling around like old army buddies.”

“You’d know,” Bucky commented to him in English.

“And so would I,” Natasha said.

Steve walked over to the fridge to pull out the fixings for a sandwich but stilled when he heard her words. “Wait, what?”

“Apparently, it took a couple months to breakthrough the brainwashing and extended freezings to finally remember that we knew each other in Hydra,” Bucky said over his shoulder before grabbing another card. _“Has he gone crazy?”_ he asked Natasha in Russian.

She nodded.

_“May be best to not mention our, um, romantic relationship right now.”_

She laughed. _“Yes, that may be wise.”_

“Will you two speak English, please?” Steve asked through gritted teeth.

Bucky took in his friend's obvious frustration and turned back to Natasha. “Eh, wise is for some other team,” he said, in English, before leaning over the cards and kissing her hard.

It was easy to ignore the sounds of Steve sputtering from the kitchen, until Bucky smelled the first whiffs of cinnamon and apple. He pulled back from her just enough to see Steve pour steaming liquid into three mugs.

 _“Cider,”_ Natasha said into his cheek.

“Da,” Steve replied, walking around the counter and over to the couch with mugs in hand. His eyebrow lifted as he took in their legs, tangled together on either side of the cards, and Steve was never one to hold his tongue. “Merry Christmas,” he said, handing them their mugs, not even trying to suppress his smile. “Try to keep it to the bedroom.”

Natasha smirked, running her hand through Bucky’s hair. “No promises, Cap,” she said, laughing, and he knew he must look like a sap with doe eyes but her hand felt too good in his hair, Stevie was handing them cider, and he had finally remembered.

He took the mug. It smelled like home. It smelled like family.

_fin._


End file.
